Scenes From the Afropunk Festival’s Fancy Ball

Rules rarely spark a good time. Yet upon entering Commodore Barry Park for the Afropunk Festival’s inaugural Fancy Ball on Friday night — a fundraiser which opened the 11th annual music spectacle in Fort Greene, Brooklyn — attendees were greeted by eight commandments: no sexism, no racism, no ableism, no ageism, no homophobia, no fatphobia, no transphobia, no hatefulness. “It’s like the most polite people I’ve ever met,” said Manzell Glover, a male bartender in a sleeveless vintage dress who identified as a QPOC (Queer Person of Color). “There was a crowd, but when people have their tapestries down or their blankets down, nobody stepped on anyone’s anything. I’ve never heard ‘excuse me’ so many times,” he said. A retail fashion stylist seated on one of those blankets, Ramie Mitchell, said, “It feels like a no-judgment zone.” Amy Van Doran, a professional matchmaker in a Tang-colored wig, was more blunt in her assessment: “Everyone here is super kind because there is less white privilege,” she said. Headliner Grace Jones took the stage a very civilized 10 minutes early, though she did tell the crowd, drolly and with an expletive appended, “Put down your phones and clap your hands. Put it between your legs if you have to.”

While some patient guests waited an hour to enter the park, a kaleidoscope of eclectic fashions emerged beneath the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway: women wore both top hats and tiaras, sometimes accented with a large single earring. High heels were held in hands or quickly ditched. One man had threaded a gold necklace through his structured ponytail, while a woman in blue lipstick wore leather chaps tied around her shoulders like a cardigan. Eyes were concealed with war paint, veils, beaded fringe, feather masks, stray dreadlocks and bristles of pink, green and blue false eyelashes. People in earthy tribal prints trekked between tents for Hill Country Barbeque and wine. Others cited Bollywood and Disney-appropriated material as their style influences (“This outfit is Mad Hatter,” said Roderick Frazier, an advertising agency producer in a floral two-piece suit, matted booties and a wooden tie with a submarine, held in place with magnets).

After the evening’s voguing competition, the Philadelphia designer Liz Abbott was one of several formally attired women to be invited onstage. Rapper Cakes de Killah called Abbot “Punk Rock Barbie.” “Every little girl wants to go to the ball, but a ball isn’t made for every little girl, and I’ve finally found mine,” she said. If anyone can relate to the ceaseless quest to find a stage, it would be John Cameron Mitchell, who created the role of East German “girlyboy” rock star Hedwig in “Hedwig and the Angry Inch,” the musical ending its Broadway run next month. Mitchell was in the audience at the Fancy Ball, and was quite impressed with his first Grace Jones concert, which included a new single and ended with “Slave to the Rhythm,” during which the 67-year-old sung while wearing just Keith Haring-inspired body paint and a hula hoop. “Grace Jones is the grace of God,” he said. “She is the soul of wit, music, fashion, life force, core strength. The costumes, the arrangements, the band, the dancer on the pole, the singers, it was just awesome.”